1. Field of the Related Art
The present disclosure relates to distributed file systems, and more particularly, to a method and system for manipulating user behaviors and user locales to store information in a distributed file system.
2. Background of the Related Art
In general, a multifunction device (MFD) operates as a plurality of different imaging devices, including, but not limited to, a printer, copier, fax machine, and/or scanner. In recent years the basic office copier has evolved into what can be referred to as a MFD. With digital technology, a machine with the basic outward appearance of a traditional copier can perform at least the additional functions of printing documents submitted in digital form over a network, sending and receiving messages via facsimile, recording hard-copy original images in digital form and sending the resulting data over a network, such as in electronic mail, temporarily storing files on their hard-disk, and/or recording hard-copy original images in digital form on a compact disc or equivalent medium.
In the area of digital printing and copying, there has been a growth in demand for MFDs. Such MFD devices may assume the form of an arrangement in which a single print engine (e.g., xerographic or thermal ink jet print engine) is coupled with a plurality of different image input devices (or “services”), with such devices being adapted to produce image related information for use by the printer or transmitted over a network. The image related information, in one example, could have its origin in video facsimile signals, microfilm, data processing information, light scanning platens for full size documents, aperture cards, and microfiche. MFDs provide a broader range of functionality than traditional single-function devices, such as dedicated printers, copiers, and scanners. As a result, because of their network transmission and storage capabilities combined with their functionality, it would be useful to monitor behavioral patterns and locations of users handling MFDs. It would also be helpful to use the concept of stigmergy to monitor behavioral patterns and locations of users handling MFDs.
“Stigmergy” is typically defined as communication through the environment, which allows the coordination of actions between several objects. For example, “Object A” can communicate with “Object B” using stigmergy when Object A marks the environment in a way that Object B can detect. Stated in different terms, stigmergy is based on sensing and sampling the environment and responding to it. The concept of stigmergy was introduced to describe the indirect communication taking place among individuals in social settings.
In chaos theory, stigmergy is an agent's use of the environment to communicate and interact. If there is more than one agent interacting with the environment (which may include other agents) then this may be considered a swarm. If there is additional behavior that occurs from the interaction of the agent with its environment that is not directly predictable from the activity of the individual agents then this is emergent behavior. The capability of self-organization is required if any emergent behavior, beneficial or not, is to arise from the swarm.
There are two types of self-organization. The first occurs as a consequence of the random activity of the agents while the second type only requires locally directed interaction. Both self-organization types eliminate the need for external control as all control activity originates from the agent interacting with its environment. Emergent behavior is the direct result of interaction between multiple individual agents and their environment. Each individual agent's environmental reactions, i.e., the behaviors of an agent are a function of the individual agents' internal state. The concept of stigmergy, however, has not been expanded to the field of MFDs where users interact as a swarm with MFDs.
As a result, in conventional systems, there is no storage mechanism that takes into account the social networking taking place between MFDs that could be defined on the basis of collected usage characteristics of those MFDs. In other words, conventional systems do not use the concept of stigmergy to store information. Instead, conventional distributed file systems have focused on storing multiple files in a replicated fashion on resources that have certain performance or availability characteristics. In such systems, structured overlays are architected to collect and maintain information so that a required number of replications of a file can be calculated to achieve a desired goal (e.g., such as average file hit-rate in the system or file availability). However, this is an inefficient and time-consuming process.
Thus, while some conventional systems allow document sharing, such document sharing mechanisms usually involve storing multiple files in a replicated fashion on resources that have certain performance or availability characteristics. Such systems do not manipulate user behavioral patterns and/or user locales or the concept of stigmergy.
Consequently, current systems lack the capability to effectively share documents based on dynamically changing variables, such as user behavioral patterns or users' physical locations. The present disclosure is intended to overcome the drawbacks of other methods by providing for storing information based on user behaviors and/or user locales based on stigmergy. In particular, the present disclosure relates to a system and method for manipulating user behaviors and user locales to store information.